Saturday, May 16, 2015

That One Time I Ran a 5K

While I consider this blog a family blog - stories focused on all of us, and obviously all coming from my perspective - I don't regularly write about myself or Brad. It's really all about the kids. That should be pretty well established by now. I couldn't not write this post, though, because it's really kind of a big deal for me.

Because I ran a 5K today. For real.

Whoa, right? I know.

Without going into a tremendous about of emotional and mental detail about the whole thing (because that certainly is not what this blog is for), I will share a few of the nuts and bolts.

I'm beginning to finally take the time to help myself out a bit; take better care of myself, do for myself what I haven't been able to do for a long time, for a variety of reasons. Of course, the most obvious is that I'm a mom and like most moms, I put myself last. Not trying to be a martyr, not at all, but that's the reality for so many moms with young kids. There's just a lot going on and a lot to keep track of that by the time there is time for me, the only thing I want to do with that time is sleep!

But I also wasn't feeling well...heavy and lazy and tired. My body needed better fuel and more energy in order to do what I wanted to do - which was, primarily, to keep up with my kids! It was beyond time for me to get my poop in a group and just do it.

So, last fall, after school started, I began getting up early to spend time on the treadmill. I began the eight week Couch to 5K program and finished it up sometime after Thanksgiving. I'm telling you, that program works! Anyway, I stuck with the treadmill through the next couple months, and at some point in there, a group of us girls from church decided to work towards participating in the Dow Weekend of Races Event, some running the 5K, some the 10K. In February we began meeting on Saturdays to run together on one of our trails, and come May, we were ready to go!

Most of these friends are runners. They do this sort of thing all the time. Best support system ever.

I had been running enough to know that I could finish the race in under 35 minutes. When I ran on my own, I was hitting right about 34 minutes. I hoped to get under that, but wasn't going to be upset if I didn't. My official race time was 33:40. Super happy with that.

It helped a lot to have my cheering section there along the race route, cheering me on.

I needed them there more than they know.

Overall, it was an awesome experience. I'm so glad I did it, and pretty darn impressed with myself that I did! Athletics has never been my thing; I've always considered myself awkward and untalented in that department. And while I know that I look absolutely ridiculous when I run, I actually enjoy it quite a bit. Never in a million years would I have thought that I'd say that!

So I hope to keep running. I know that setting goals for myself works, so I'll need to set a new one in order to keep at this running thing. *UPDATE: New goal - run 40 miles in June!* And just in case you're curious, there are a handful of other self-care and self-improvement goals that I have for myself, too, and slowly but surely I'm working to integrate quite a few into my routine and habits: making myself a reader again; cutting back on social media use; investing more time in my creative interests; getting out of the house more during the day; making sleep a priority. Shoot, I may even start flossing soon!